Max R

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

Breaking: Elon Musk ordered the Starlink slowdown that blindsided Ukraine https://t.co/bbLQBC4sbA

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

Wow… is this true @elonmusk ?

[Mark @Mark_IKN]

The families of the 10 murdered workers are accusing Viszla Silver $VZLA $VZLA.to of refusing to help authorities investigate the crime. The 10 were taken from $VZLA property by narco gangsters. Viszla has CCTV footage of the abduction, but refuses to hand the tapes to police.

[MINING.COM @mining]

BMO Capital Markets has raised its long-term copper price forecast 47% to $16,000 a metric ton in real terms, or $18,000 nominal by 2030.

For 2027, BMO forecasts $14,675, Macquarie $12,750 and BMI $12,900. Deutsche Bank sees $10 a pound, or $22,050 a metric ton, in the second quarter of 2027.

BMO puts the US stockpile at close to 2 million metric tons, about a year of American consumption.

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,

My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov.

The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison.

I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return.

I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something.

Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act.

Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged.

Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working.

A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats.

This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried.

There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go.

Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him.

I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them.

This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one.

Three things would change the math overnight.

Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined.

End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.

And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them.

Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine.

I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it.

Respectfully,

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[unusual_whales @unusual_whales]

This is unusual.

CFTC staff have reportedly been told to retract their analysis of suspicious oil trades.

Unusual Whales caught many of them.

Let's take a look at billions of dollars in well-timed bets on oil futures, placed before major Trump announcements on the Iran war.

[Sean Casten @SeanCasten]

This is a holy shit story. The fact that Trump insiders are trading on their information is of course not surprising, even as it is sickening. But if investors lose faith in the integrity of US financial markets we lose everything that makes us wealthy. This is a really BFD.

[Max R @MaxRCrypto]

@KarelMercx Love $FANG

[Chris Martenson @chrismartenson]

Why isn't oil at $200? Because "someone" keeps dumping oil futures all night long, and the CFTC refuses to look into it. Heck, even when it's clear-cut insider trading, the CFTC has been told to "back off," and they did. https://t.co/Do5mmc1YZR

[Max R @MaxRCrypto]

@Hedgeye 🤯

[Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський @ZelenskyyUa]

We currently see no signs from Russia that it wants to end the war. We see no basic steps toward de-escalation. Everyone is talking about diesel and forgetting about grain. In a month or two, everyone will start talking about an agricultural crisis. There won’t be enough food for countries across Africa, some Asian countries, and the Middle East, because we export millions of tons of grain to these very markets. And now Russia is blocking the sea.

The United States isn’t feeling the effects of this, which is why the focus is only on energy. This is another challenge. It’s hunger. And it can affect many countries. And we need to think about everything and everyone, because we all live on this planet. We can prevent many different crises before they even begin and avert the challenges they bring.

From remarks at the Warsaw Security Forum. (2)

[Karel Mercx @KarelMercx]

Oil is on its way to $200.

The main reason is that global money supply still shows no real demand destruction, let alone a global recession.

Global money supply is basically all the money moving through the world economy. Look at 2022, when inflation and rising rates pushed it sharply lower.

There is an oil shortage. Oil prices will rise, inflation will rise, and interest rates will rise. As more money goes toward servicing and paying down debt, less money circulates through the economy, pushing global money supply lower.

If the Middle East escalates quickly, $200 could come very fast. The attack on Riyadh airport is worrying. But even if the conflict keeps dragging on, oil will still reach $200.

Look at the post below. The oil market is extremely tight.

[Mike Pence @Mike_Pence]

President Trump’s decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amidst Putin’s ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham.

While Ukraine fights for its survival, Putin’s war machine continues to prosecute his terrorist war on civilian populations and innocent Ukrainians are dying every day.

Now, Instead of implementing the tough sanctions Lindsey Graham fought to his last breath to enact, President Trump has announced the United States is lifting sanctions on Russian energy, fueling the Putin’s war machine.

As I saw firsthand in Ukraine last month, Putin is losing this war. Ukraine has fought the Russian military to a standstill and reinvented warfare with drones taking the fight into the heart of Russia.

America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin’s war machine. Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration.

Putin doesn’t want peace. Putin wants Ukraine. I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia’s military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.

America is the Leader of the Free World. For our National Security, for the security of our Allies in Europe including Ukraine, President Trump should rescind this deal immediately and return to the strong policies of our four years in the White House; impose harsh sanctions on any nation purchasing Russian energy and work with our allies to ensure Ukraine has the military support it needs to repel and defeat this Russian invasion once and for all. Slava Ukraini🇺🇸🇺🇦

[The Great Martis @great_martis]

Gasoline ⛽️vs. Crude Oil 🛢️

If there ever was a path of obvious clarity, this is it.

The Trump administration is doubling down on the record oil output narrative for the reason shown below.

The contrast between gasoline where it is harder to spin a positive narrative and crude oil, where a positive spin comes more easily, is clearly visible on the chart.

Both instruments have carved out majestic inverted head and shoulders patterns.

The lagging crude oil now looks inevitably primed to break out and follow gasoline to higher highs.

We await the outcome with anticipation and admiration.

Yours truly,
The Great Martis🙏

[Aldebaran Resources Inc @AldebaranInc]

This week, Aldebaran released drill results from the Altar #copper #gold project in San Juan, Argentina, including an intercept of over 1700 M at 0.45% CuEq

John Black spoke with @TrevAHall on Mining Stock Daily to add more context: https://t.co/2MFlsqRBQd

$ALDE.V $ADBRF ⛏️🇦🇷📈

[Common Sense Investor (CSI) @commonsenseplay]

$OKLO Back in October, when this was a $20B company, I laid out the 10 reasons I thought the stock will fall 80%.

One of the simplest observations? Their entire office was smaller than a Wendy’s. I shorted the hype and made 120% as the bubble finally burst.

The stock has now collapsed from $190 to under $34 - down ~80%. I’ll keep calling out hype when I see it, regardless of how many loud bulls on X insist “this time is different.”

[Max R @MaxRCrypto]

@MarioNawfal That's why we buy $OXY and $FANG

[Max R @MaxRCrypto]

@PeterSchiff Managers have to sell gold to cover their margin losses. It will be ok.

[Mark @Mark_IKN]

I started writing a post with "I don't think the market understands the significance of the $ALDE.v hole reported today", then just started laughing at myself. Then went to the local police station and demanded they arrest me for criminal understatement. My stars, what a hole.

[Karel Mercx @KarelMercx]

Everyone is bidding against each other for the physical oil that is still available.

The cost of shipping 2 million barrels from West Africa to China is going vertical.

Yesterday alone, it jumped 17.6% to $27.22 per barrel.